Voyagers IV - The Return Read online

  Craig studied her face for a long moment. “You know, I had a revelation in there. When he showed us the nuclear holocaust, God sent me a revelation.”

  “A revelation?”

  “Yes. The end of the world is truly at hand. It’s all part of God’s plan. The final act.”

  Her mind racing, Angelique told herself, Be very careful how you answer him. Very careful.

  “Well?” Craig demanded, misreading her silence. “Does that frighten you?”

  She took a deep breath, then replied, “No, Your Worship. It doesn’t frighten me. Because Stoner will save us from such a calamity. I think he represents a gift from God, a way out of the nuclear holocaust that might devour us.”

  She saw immediately that she had made a mistake. Craig pointed a shaking finger at her. “That nuclear holocaust could be God’s final cleansing! The final trumpet from the Book of Revelation.”

  “The end of the world,” Angelique whispered.

  “Fire and brimstone. It’s predicted.”

  “But . . . but . . .”Angelique cast about for some words that would move Bishop Craig from his acceptance of the final holocaust. “But would God destroy His own creations? Just snuff out everyone?”

  “He would be calling us to our eternal reward,” Bishop Craig said.

  Now Angelique felt real fear. Not of God’s ending the world in fire and brimstone but of the blind acceptance of men high in the New Morality, such as Bishop Craig. Are there similar men in the rest of the world? she asked herself. Are the Chinese just as blindly fatalistic? And the jihadists?

  CHAPTER 7

  True to her plans, Sister Angelique subtly convinced Archbishop Overmire to ask her to oversee his office for the few days he’d be in the hospital.

  “My staff is loyal and trustworthy,” the Archbishop said while munching on his breakfast whole-grain muffin. “But you’re much closer to this Stoner person than any of them.”

  “Stoner is the key to everything, isn’t he, Your Eminence?” Angelique murmured, her voice and face showing proper humility.

  The Archbishop wiped his mouth daintily with the paper napkin from his breakfast tray. “He wants me to march into the Oval Office and tell the President to stop the nuclear program.”

  “He’d be willing to go with you, I’m sure,” said Angelique. “He’d stand at your side.”

  “Would he?”

  “Of course. I’m certain of it.” But even as she said the words, Angelique pictured herself standing before the President of the United States, with Stoner at her side.

  The Archbishop’s staff obviously resented having a mere nun come into the office. Not just joining the staff but coming in as the Archbishop’s personal executive assistant, representing the Archbishop himself, standing over them all.

  Angelique sensed their unspoken bitterness as they stood gathered in the Archbishop’s office: fourteen aides and department chiefs, eleven men and three women, all in black clerical garb, each of them sworn to loyalty to the Archbishop’s wishes, each of them staring sullenly at this stranger who had suddenly walked in and taken charge. Their ages ranged from gray haired to fuzzy cheeked. Their attitudes were all hostile, even though they were trying to conceal it.

  “This is only for a few days,” Angelique assured them. She had chosen—wisely, she thought—not to stand behind the Archbishop’s desk. Instead she stood against one of the blank-screened walls, almost as if she were facing a firing squad.

  As sweetly as she could, Angelique told them, “As you know, the Archbishop must remain in hospital for a few days. Nothing serious or life threatening, but his enormous duties have taken their toll on his metabolism.”

  She saw a few sly grins among the staffers facing her. They knew about the Archbishop’s obesity problem better than she did.

  “No one outside these walls must know that the Archbishop is not here. Everything must proceed as usual—”

  “The Archbishop has a full schedule of appointments,” said one of the younger men.

  “You’ll have to switch them from personal to electronic,” Angelique replied. “You have a simulacrum program for the Archbishop, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but the program needs a human overseer to fill in direct responses when they’re needed.”

  Angelique thought swiftly. “Which of you handles the Archbishop’s public relations?”

  One of the gray-haired men slowly put his hand up.

  “Can you speak for the Archbishop, then?”

  “Me?” He looked startled at the thought.

  “Yes. Just speak in generalities,” Angelique said. With a smile, she added, “You know, like a politician during an election campaign.”

  The others laughed softly.

  “Can you do that?” Angelique asked the P.R. man.

  Uncertainly he answered, “I guess so. If it’s just for a few days.”

  “Good.”

  By the end of the day Angelique had the office running smoothly enough. The staff seemed cooperative, if not friendly; efficient, if not enthusiastic.

  It was only after they had all gone home for the day that Angelique allowed herself to sit at the Archbishop’s desk. She called Raoul Tavalera and invited him to her apartment for dinner.

  Tavalera had spent the day cooped up in his own apartment. For more than an hour he had spoken with Holly Lane at the Goddard habitat, but the rest of the time he’d devoted to studying history and cosmology on the TV nets.

  It was all history, he thought. The history of the human race and the history of the universe. Big and little. Stars and people. There actually was a man who was born into an obscure nomadic tribe on the Gobi Desert who conquered most of the friggin’ world, Tavalera learned. There actually is a gigantic black hole at the heart of the Milky Way galaxy that’s gobbling up whole stars by the thousands and spewing out deadly radiation.

  Learning was fun, he realized. Too bad they don’t make it fun in school.

  Through the whole long day he waited for a call from Stoner. Nothing. The star man didn’t contact him, not even a Hi, how are you? in his mind.

  I wonder where he is? Tavalera asked himself.

  CHAPTER 8

  Stoner was back in New Tehran, in the mildly disordered office of the Iranian astronomer Karim Bakhtiar. This time, Bakhtiar sat beside Stoner on one of the wobbly plastic chairs while his brother Ahmed sat behind the scientist’s desk, wearing the tan uniform of a general in the Revolutionary Guard.

  It was easy to see that the two men were brothers. Ahmed Bakhtiar was slim and wiry like the astronomer, his skin the same tobacco-leaf color. The general’s thin face bore a thick dark moustache, and his hairline was receding; otherwise they might have been twins, almost.

  “My brother tells me you have traveled to the stars,” said Ahmed Bakhtiar. His voice was rough, rasping, as if his throat were inflamed.

  “That’s true,” Stoner replied.

  The general smiled through his luxuriant moustache. “It is true that he told me this, or it is true that you have been to the stars?”

  Stoner grinned back at him. “Both.”

  “I see. And where is your starship?”

  “In a high orbit.”

  General Bakhtiar’s dark brows rose. “There is no such spacecraft. Our radar—”

  “Can’t see it,” Stoner said. “But it’s there, I assure you. As certainly as I’m here.”

  “Which brings up the question of why you are here.”

  “To convince you to stop your nuclear weapons program,” Stoner said calmly.

  The general flicked a scowling glance at his brother.

  Karim Bakhtiar shrugged elaborately and said, “I didn’t tell him! He already knew!”

  In a slightly stronger tone Stoner said, “General, you more than almost anyone else understand the devastation that nuclear war can bring.”

  “The Israelis destroyed Tehran.”

  “And you wiped out Israel. Has that made the world any better? All you acco
mplished was to obliterate the excuse you gave your people for your government’s failures.”

  “They attacked us first!” General Bakhtiar insisted, his face reddening.

  Stoner sighed. “First, last, the result is the same. Millions killed. And what did you accomplish?”

  “I wasn’t in command at that time.”

  “I know. You were only following orders.”

  The astronomer said, “What’s done is done. It can’t be changed.”

  “Very true,” said Stoner. Turning back to the general, “But now you are building nuclear weapons again. And missiles that can carry them across the world.”

  “We’ve got to protect ourselves against the Americans.”

  “And they want to protect themselves against you.”

  “And the Chinese,” added Karim Bakhtiar.

  His bearded face turning sterner, Stoner asked, “And what happens if one of your nuclear bombs falls into the hands of a terrorist group?”

  General Bakhtiar almost smiled. “God knows.”

  “You’ve been very clever all these years. You and other Islamic governments have funded terrorists, provided them arms, trained them—”

  “The government of Greater Iran does not sponsor terrorism,” the general said flatly.

  “Of course not,” replied Stoner. “Still, terrorist cells somehow find money and weapons and training. They still kill innocent people all around the world.”

  Leaning forward slightly in the desk chair, General Bakhtiar said in a low, grating voice, “We have kept the jihadists in check as much as we can. The destruction of Israel satisfied them for a time—”

  “But they are still poor and filled with hate,” said Stoner.

  “Not only the poor have hatred for the unbelievers. And now, with the Americans building nuclear bombs again, where will they use them, except against us?”

  “The Americans fear the same about you.”

  “Pah!” the general spat. “The fools will unleash jihad upon themselves. We won’t be able to hold back the fanatics.”

  “And the world ends in nuclear flames.”

  “God’s will,” said the general.

  “No,” Stoner replied. “Man’s will. Men plan these attacks. And what does it gain you? The United States has become an armed camp, with a repressive government that strangles individual liberties—all in the name of national security.”

  “That isn’t my affair,” said General Bakhtiar. “Not my responsibility.”

  “I believe the Qur’an says differently.”

  Again the general glanced at his brother. This time the astronomer said, “One can find anything one looks for in the Qur’an. And in the Christian Bible, as well.”

  With the ghost of a smile, Stoner replied, “True enough. Still, this move toward nuclear war will wipe out everyone and everything. It’s got to stop.”

  The general smiled back at him. “And how will you stop it?”

  Stoner looked at him for a long, silent moment. At last he asked, “If the Americans disband their nuclear program, will you disband Greater Iran’s?”

  “What of the Chinese?”

  “The Chinese, too. No one needs nuclear weapons if everyone stops building them.”

  General Bakhtiar said nothing.

  “You need to stop your programs now, all three of you, before other nations start developing nuclear weapons,” said Stoner.

  “A dream,” said the general. “You are a dreamer.”

  “Yes, I am a dreamer. Aren’t you? Don’t you dream of a world at peace, where Greater Iran and all the other nations are secure and prosperous?”

  The general started to reply, hesitated, then finally said, “I dream of a world that accepts Allah and the teachings of the Prophet.”

  “And do you think you can bring about such a world through nuclear war? Or even conventional war? Conversion to Islam by the sword, is that truly what you seek?”

  General Bakhtiar looked slightly uncomfortable. He fidgeted in the swivel chair, touched his moustache with a fingertip.

  “Be aware of two things, General,” Stoner told him. “One, the bugs that your security people have planted in this room aren’t operating. No one can see or hear what we say.”

  His brows rising, Bakhtiar asked, “And the other thing?”

  “I know what you’re really thinking.”

  “You can read my thoughts?”

  With a tight smile, Stoner replied, “No. Nothing so mystical. But I can read your face, I can sense slight changes in your blood pressure, little bursts of neurons firing in your body.”

  The astronomer broke into a sudden laugh. “A lie detector! You’re a walking lie detector.”

  Stoner nodded. “It’s a useful talent.”

  The general stiffened.

  Stoner got up from his chair. “I’ll be meeting with the American President soon. Once they abandon their nuclear weaponry program I’ll expect you to disband yours.”

  And he disappeared from the room, leaving the general staring across the desk at his brother, the astronomer.

  CHAPTER 9

  Sister Angelique had the New Morality’s commissary send a complete dinner for two up to her studio apartment. Nothing fancy, just a pair of fried chicken entrées with salads and angel cake for dessert. No wine: decaffeinated cola, instead.

  She had instructed the security police to pick up Tavalera from his apartment in time to deliver him to her room at 8:00 P.M.

  Tavalera showed up precisely at eight. Angelique thought he would be pleased to have dinner with her. After all, she reasoned, it can’t be much fun for him locked in that little apartment all day long. Still, as Tavalera stepped into her sitting room, he looked rather tense, wary.

  Does he know I drugged him the last time? she wondered. Of course he does! Stoner must have seen the whole thing and told him about it. I can’t keep secrets from Stoner.

  But Tavalera thawed easily enough. They made pleasant-enough chitchat while Angelique put out dinner plates on her kitchenette table and pulled the precooked meals from the microwave oven.

  As they gnawed on the chicken with honey-sticky fingers, Angelique asked, “What’s Stoner up to?”

  Shaking his head while he swallowed, Tavalera said, “Damned . . . I mean, darned if I know.”

  “You’re not in touch with him?”

  “Nope. He contacts me when he wants to.”

  “And you don’t know where he is?”

  “Nope.”

  Angelique thought about that for a few moments while she chewed on her salad. Stoner knows what Tavalera is doing, she guessed. He said that Raoul is his contact on Earth. She almost smiled at the thought of Raoul Tavalera playing St. Peter to Stoner’s Jesus.

  No, it’s not like that at all, she told herself. But if Raoul is in danger, Stoner will come to help him. She tucked that idea away in her mind for future reference.

  As they started on the meager slices of cake, Tavalera asked, “So how’s the Archbishop?”

  She blinked, then replied, “He’s fine.”

  “He looked pretty sick back there in his office.”

  “He was in shock. We all were.”

  “Yeah, but he collapsed.”

  “He’s fine now.”

  Tavalera took a sip of cola, then asked, “So when does he take Stoner to see the President?”

  “Soon,” she said. “In a few days.”

  “Good,” said Tavalera. “Wish I could go with him.”

  “You’re not?”

  With a shrug, Tavalera answered, “Beats me. He does what he wants to do. Doesn’t tell me about it beforehand.”

  Disappointed, Angelique realized that she couldn’t use Tavalera to get to Stoner. She’d have to do it herself.

  Why not? Angelique asked herself the next morning.

  She sat at the Archbishop’s broad, polished desk and repeated the question. Why not? Why wait for the Archbishop? I’ll set up the meeting in his name.

 
She was surprised, and a little awed, at how easy it was. When she phoned the President’s office, his appointments secretary came right on the screen. No delays. No wading through layers of aides and assistants. Archbishop Overmire’s office was calling, and the President’s appointments secretary took the call herself.

  “This involves the star man, Keith Stoner,” Angelique said to the image on the phone screen.

  The appointments secretary was a middle-aged woman with hair so golden blond that Angelique knew it was the result of cosmetics. Her face was thin, like a fashion model’s. But her eyes were sharp, intense.

  “I’m putting this on the scrambler circuit,” she said.

  “Of course,” Angelique agreed.

  The screen flickered momentarily, then steadied.

  The appointments secretary said, “I believe the National Academy of Sciences has been asked to investigate that man’s claims.”

  Angelique smiled sweetly into the screen. “Archbishop Overmire has met with him personally and accepts his claim. Stoner really has traveled to the stars.”

  “Really! The Archbishop believes him?”

  They chatted on for nearly ten minutes more. In the end the appointments secretary told Angelique she could clear half an hour of the President’s time the following afternoon, at four. Angelique thanked her and broke the connection.

  Now how do I get in touch with Stoner? she asked herself.

  Through Tavalera, she decided.

  But when she called the apartment she’d given Raoul, he wasn’t there.

  Stoner had appeared in Tavalera’s locked apartment that morning while the younger man was spooning up some breakfast cereal. He barely dropped any of it when Stoner suddenly manifested himself in the doorway of the kitchenette.

  Gulping down what he’d already had in his mouth, Tavalera said, “Y’know, you could knock. Or ring a bell or something. Let a guy know you’re gonna pop in.”

  Stoner grinned back at him. “Come on, Raoul; you’re getting accustomed to this.”

  Tavalera put down his spoon. “Yeah, maybe, a little. But still . . .”

  “Would you like a blare of trumpets? Or maybe a gong?”

  “Just say ‘knock knock’ before you appear. Okay?”